Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

- weeks, nay, months earlier, before all the plums were gone. I should have liked to do something for you: at the beginning of the war there were commands aplenty. I shall look into this question of promotion that has been urged upon me, but I can hold out no hope of a ship. However, there may be some slight possibility in the Sea-​Fencibles or the Impress Service: we are extending both, and they call for active, enterprising men.’

They also called for solvent men, seeing that they were landborne posts: comfort-​loving men, devoid of ambition or tired of the sea, willing to look after a kind of fisherman’s militia or to attend to the odious work of the press-​gang. Clearly it was now or never, all or nothing. Once that hard-​faced man the other side of the desk had made a firm offer of a shore appointment there would be no shifting him. ‘My lord,’ said Jack, with all the force and energy he could respectfully express, ‘I like a plum, a post-​ship, as much as any man alive; but if I might have four pieces of wood that swim, I should be happy, more than happy, to sail them on any service, on any station in the world as a commander or anything else. I have been afloat since I was fourteen, sir, and I have never refused any employment their lordships were good enough to offer me. I believe I may promise you would not regret your decision, sir. All I want is to be at sea again.’

‘Heu, heu,’ said Lord Melville, in his meditating way, pinning Jack with a grey stare. ‘So you make no stipulation of any kind? There was a great deal of clack about your friends wishing you to be made post for the Cacafuego affair.’

‘None whatsoever, my lord,’ said Jack, and shut his mouth. He thought of trying to explain the unfortunate word ‘claim’ that he had been inspired to use the last time he was in this room: thought better of it, and kept his mouth shut, wearing a look of deferential attention and maintaining it better than he could have done a year ago, although he had a far greater respect for St Vincent than he ever could have for a civilian.

‘Weel,’ said the First Lord, after a pause, ‘I can promise nothing. You can have no conception of the applications, of the interests to be managed, balanced . . . but there might be some remote possibility . . . come and see me next week. In the meantime I will look into this question of promotion, though the post-​captain’s list is grievously overcharged; and I will turn over the possibilities. Come and see me on Wednesday. Mind me, now, if I do find anything, it will be no plum: that is the one thing I can promise you. But I bind myself in no way at all.’

Jack stood up and made his acknowledgments of his lordship’s goodness in seeing him. Lord Melville observed, in an unofficial voice, ‘I dare say we shall meet this evening at Lady Keith’s: if I can find time, I shall look in.’

‘I shall look forward to it extremely, my lord,’ said Jack. ‘Good day to you,’ said Lord Melville, ringing a bell and looking eagerly at his inner door.

‘You seem wery cheerful, sir,’ said the porter, scanning Jack’s face with ancient, red-​rimmed eyes. Wery cheerful was an exaggeration; contained satisfaction was more the mark; but at all events it was nothing remotely like the expression of an officer with a flat refusal weighing on his heart.

‘Why, Tom, so I am,’ said Jack. ‘I walked in from Hampstead this morning, as far as Seven Dials. There is nothing like a morning walk to set a man up.’

‘Something copper-​bottomed, sir?’ asked Tom: no tales of morning walks would wash with him. He was old, knowing and familiar; he had known Jack before his first shave, just as he knew almost every other officer on the Navy List below the rank of admiral, and he had a right to a tip if something copper-​bottomed turned up while he was on duty.

‘Not - not exactly, Tom,’ said Jack, looking keenly out through the hall and court to the sodden crowds passing up and down Whitehall - the chops of the Channel, full of shipping; and what cruisers, privateers, chasse-​marées, lurking there among them? What unseen rocks? What bums? ‘No. But I tell you what it is, Tom: I came out without a cloak and without any money. Just call me a coach and lend me half a guinea, will you?’

Tom had no opinion of sea-​officers’ powers of discrimination or management on shore; he was not surprised that Jack should have come out lacking the common necessities of life, and from his reading of Jack’s expression he was of the opinion that something was on its way - the Fencibles alone would provide a dozen fresh appointments, even if he were not made post. He produced the little coin with a secret, conniving look, and summoned a coach.

Jack plunged into the coach with his hat pulled over his nose and sat huddled low in the corner, peering furtively through the muddy glasses - a curiously deformed, conspicuous figure that excited comment whenever the horse moved at less than a trot. ‘An ill-​looking parcel of bastards,’ he reflected, seeing a bailiff in every full-​grown man. ‘But my God, what a life. Doing this every day, cooped up with a ledger - what a life.’ The cheerless faces went by, hurrying to their dismal work, an endless wet, anxious, cold, grey-​yellow stream of people, jostling, pushing past one another like an ugly dream, with here and there a pretty shop-​girl or servant to make it more heart-​rendingly pathetic.

A convoy of hay-​wains came down the Hampstead Road, led by countrymen with long whips. The whips, the drivers’ smocks, the horses’ tails and manes were trimmed with ribbons, and the men’s broad faces shone red, effulgent through the gloom. From Jack’s remote and ineffectual schooldays sprang a tag: 0 fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, agricolas. ‘Come, that is pretty good. How I wish Stephen had been by, to hear it. However, I shall flash it out at him presently.’ There would be plenty of opportunity, since they were to travel down the same road that evening to Queenie’s rout, and with any luck they would see some agricolas among that pitiable throng.

‘Will you tell me about your interview, now?’ said Stephen, pushing his report aside and looking into Jack’s face with as much attention as the aged porter.

‘It was not so bad. Now I have had time to turn it over in my mind, it was not so bad at all. I think they may promote me or give me a ship: one or the other. If they make me post, there is always the possibility of a post-​ship in time, and of acting commands; and if they give me a sloop, why, there I am.’

‘What are acting commands?’

‘When a post-​captain is sick, or wants to go ashore for a while - it often happens when they are peers or members of parliament - another post-​captain on half-​pay is appointed to his ship for the time being. Shall I tell you about it from the beginning?’

‘If you please.’

‘It started charmingly. The First Lord said he was happy to see me. No First Lord had ever been happy to see me before, or at least he had always managed to contain it - is there any coffee left in that pot, Stephen?’

‘There is not. But you may have some beer presently; it is nearly two o’clock.’

‘Well, it began charmingly, but then it took the ugliest vile turn imaginable; he made a sad mouth and said it was a pity I had come so late - he would have liked to do something for me. Then he made my heart die within me by prating about the Fencibles and the Impress Service and I knew that somehow I must head him off before he made a direct offer.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, it would never do to refuse. If you turn down a ship because she don’t suit - because she’s on the West Indies station, say, and you don’t care for the yellow Jack - it is a black mark against you: you may never be employed again. They don’t like you to pick and choose. The good of the service must come first, they say: and they are perfectly in the right of it. Then again, I could not tell him I hated both the Fencibles and the press and that in any event I could accept neither without being laid by the heels.’